Saudi Arabia's hopes of acquiring America's most coveted stealth fighter, the F-35, have encountered the one problem money cannot solve, in that kingdom: trust. Several American intelligence estimates, which have since been widely shared in the Pentagon, the State Department and on congressional committees, say they could give Beijing a backdoor route into its most closely guarded secrets, not via an adversarial Saudi state, but through the kingdom's growing reliance on Chinese technology and capital.

The central issue in the concern is so straightforward. In one of the most comprehensive reports prepared several months before the current review, analysts at the Defense Intelligence Agency marked the scope of Chinese military presence in Saudi bases and, significantly, the kingdom's dependence on Chinese companies for its telecommunications infrastructure. Huawei has been conducting a cloud factory in Riyadh since 2023, and the digital-infrastructure drive has been gradually gaining momentum since Saudi Arabia and China elevated their relationship to a “comprehensive strategic partnership” in 2016. The DIA is asking Congress to take an uncomfortable seat and ask themselves this question: even with the best measures taken, can the U.S. ensure that facilities where F-35 diagnostics, maintenance data and mission systems are housed remain isolated from networks running on Chinese hardware? No one in the current review has responded positively with a definite yes.

There is no paranoia in this hypothetical; it is real. China's interest in the F-35 secrets is not new. The case of Su Bin, an aerospace executive who was convicted in the United States for his actions with Chinese hackers, is the most referenced: prosecutors claim that the scheme stole the documents of tens of thousands of documents on the F-22 and F-35 programs. Beijing has also been accused of recruiting retired American and allied pilots to provide training to its own air force on Western tactics. It didn't need the country to possess the jet, only to be in proximity, and to have personnel and patience. Saudi Arabia, intelligence agencies say, would have all three, owing to its base access, commercial links to Chinese companies and its unbroken history of missile procurement from China, including the purchase of DF-3s during the Cold War era and more recent transfers of DF-21s, as well as Chinese arms for its domestic solid-fuel rocket program.

Washington has come before and blinked. F-35 sales to the United Arab Emirates were part of the Abraham Accords package, but the deal went sour after the Trump administration's intelligence agencies expressed similar concerns about the UAE's Chinese activities, especially the installation of 5G infrastructure by Huawei. Turkey was frozen out of the F-35 programme altogether after buying Russian S-400 air-defence systems. Retired Gen. Charles Wald, former deputy commander of U.S. European Command, summed it up this week simply: The worry really was never that a Gulf ally would knowingly sell Beijing the jet, it was that intelligence penetration human or electronic would do it anyways. Specifically, his pricklier concern was towards the East, where the F-35s of South Korea are the leak point.

The money involved is substantial enough to justify the push for this deal despite the warnings. Saudi Arabia has come back with a request for up to 48 aircraft, plus an extra engine, topping a May arms deal worth near $142 billion that Washington and Riyadh signed at the time and the White House has described as the largest defense cooperation agreement in American history. Saudi Arabia would provide Lockheed Martin with another customer for the F-35 program, and not just any customer the only Arab operation of a fifth-generation fighter.Saudi Arabia would give Lockheed Martin another customer for the F-35 program, and not just any customer; it would be the only Arab fifth-generation fighter operator. The jets are not so much about capability as prestige and deterrence for Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, as his air force's performance has been as fragile as ever in recent years, despite the expensive seven-year campaign against Yemen's Houthis, and the recent downing of drones in Saudi soil in the broader Iran-Israel confrontation.

All of this is playing out in Israel's own calculation. Since 2016, Jerusalem has sought to put a unilateral lock on the F-35 in the Middle East, and has quietly pressured a halt to the same practice for Riyadh, saying it would result in a loss of Washington's “qualitative military edge” guaranteed by law. The commitment is not just a sentiment, but a statutory obligation that carries some weight on Capitol Hill. It puts a double strain upon the sale, as the China issue is added to the worry about Beijing's reach by lawmakers and its military primacy by a close ally.

Congress, on the other hand, is not sitting on its duff. Democratic lawmakers, such as Joe Courtney, Raja Krishnamoorthi and Donald Norcross, have written the administration regarding interagency vetting and the Pentagon's plans to block F-35 data from flowing through Saudi digital systems connected to Huawei and China Telecom. Before approving, Deputy Under Secretary of Defense Stephen Bryen said lawmakers must make their own decision on the extent to which Chinese companies have infiltrated the country's defense industry. The State Department has already submitted an informal package to the appropriate committees that includes the 48 jets; notification has not yet been finalized and the more difficult political battle remains to come.

What comes out is not really a tale of airplanes but a cost of great power competition paid in advance. All the allies who are now purchasing high-tech American weaponry are also, inevitably or conveniently, linked into Chinese commercial and military ties, whether in their telecoms, their missile stocks, their port facilities.